Optimizing Globalization Will Become Possible with a New Paradigm

Humanity is experiencing great trauma during the current phase of globalization. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE; 2019), “Globalization is… the growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information.” The human factor is included significantly in the PIIE definition—cultures, populations and flows of people. The human factor has been the least considered in current and early stages of globalization. That factor causes the most resistance and fear. Where and how are we looking for solutions? We keep focusing on areas where we have invested the most—economy, technology and physical science, while increasingly disregarding human dignity and human agency (Haque, 2018). This article proposes that we can address these inconsistencies in globalization if humanity evolves to greater maturity through a paradigm, which reveals cultural interdependence as a priority on par with economic and technological interdependence.  Such a paradigm is Cultural Complementarity, which can harness cultural synergy to complement the achievements already in place and to reduce fear and divisiveness and their resulting excess and crises.